# pipe dream

Pronunciation: say "PYP-dreem" US /ˈpaɪp ˌdrim/, UK /ˈpaɪp driːm/

## Idiom

1. A desire or idea that is unlikely to become real, or a plan that is unlikely to work; something close to impossible.
   - Simple: A wish, idea, or plan that is very unlikely to come true or to work.
   - _Critics dismissed the proposed high-speed rail line as a pipe dream._
   - _A decade ago, cheap solar power for every home was a pipe dream, but prices have fallen fast._

## Idiom · pipe-dream

2. To have a desire or idea that is unlikely to come true, or imagine a plan unlikely to work; to dream of the nearly impossible.
   - Simple: To wish for or imagine something that is very unlikely to happen or work.
   - _Rather than fix the roof, they sit on the porch and pipe-dream of a villa on the Italian coast._
   - _He spent most of his twenties pipe-dreaming about a film career that never got started._

## Origin

**Meaning 1** — Formed from pipe + dream, referring to the fantasies experienced when smoking an opium pipe. Old English had a word formed the same way, pīpdrēam, but it meant something different: “the sound or music of a pipe.”
**Meaning 2** — From the noun pipe dream.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/pipe-dream (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).